Published ahead of print on September 28, 2005, doi:10.1164/rccm.200504-546OC Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Volume 172, Number 12, December 2005, 1581-1585 A more recent version of this article appeared on December 15, 2005
Submitted on April 8, 2005 Absence of Kaposi's Sarcoma-associated Herpesvirus in Patients with Pulmonary Arterial HypertensionCornelia Henke-Gendo1,1 Institute of Virology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, 2 Institute of Pathology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, 3 Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany * To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Schulz.thomas{at}mh-hannover.de.
Rationale: In addition to Kaposi's sarcoma, Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV or HHV-8) has been associated with two other diseases, primary effusion lymphoma and the plasma cell variant of multicentric Castleman's disease. Recently, evidence of KSHV
infection was reported in plexiform lesions of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension (IPAH) as well as in adjacent parenchyma and bronchial epithelial cells. Objectives: To further investigate a possible association of KSHV and pulmonary arterial hypertension.
Methods and measurements: Twenty-six lungs explanted from German patients suffering from IPAH were tested for the presence of KSHV antigen and genomes by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and PCR. Main Results: When stained with a commercial monoclonal antibody directed against the latency-associated nuclear antigen of KSHV,
LANA-1, a positive signal reminiscent of the "speckled" nuclear pattern typical for latently KSHV-infected cells was found in 16 (61.5%) cases. Alveolar and bronchial epithelial cells in areas of unremarkable lung tissue, but not cells within the plexiform lesions were the
predominantly stained cell types. Different KSHV-PCR assays (based on orf 26, orf K6 and orf 72) performed on samples that had tested positively in IHC, however, could not confirm KSHV infection, indicating that the IHC-signal was not due to KSHV infection. One IHC-negative patient tested positive by PCR. A PCR based on consensus degenerate hybrid oligonucleotide primers (CODEHOP) to detect yet unknown Key words: etiology, pathogenesis, CODEHOP
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-herpesviruses did not reveal
any specific sequences. Conclusions: KSHV is unlikely to play a role in the pathogenesis of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension.
